Oldest' Alumna Winner Leaves Charity Bequests

Mary Rae Little of Allentown - for years, the oldest alumna at Cedar Crest College reunions - has left $7,000 in charitable bequests from an estate of about $300,000.

And, among her estate papers in a small notebook, she also left a handwritten prayer that called upon us to return goodfor evil.

Little died at age 96 on Feb. 14 at her home in Allentown. And it was with the aid of friends that she was able to live out her life in that home. She was legally blind in her final years.

She never had a car or television. But she kept in touch with the world through two transistor radios.

She was the last of her family, a dainty Victorian lady with a sense of humor.

Her employment career had consisted of a few months of kindergarten teaching shortly after her graduation from Cedar Crest College. The kids ran all over her, she said later.

Little was valedictorian of the Class of 1909, when it was still Allentown College for Women at 4th and Turner streets. Hers was the first class under Dr. William F. Curtis as president. "We endured him," she said.

She was able to go to college because she got a scholarship.

Her father, the Rev. Dr. James A. Little, was a noted Presbyterian minister in the Lehigh Valley. He was popularly known as the "Sunshine Pastor."

He considered "housekeeping" as the primary duty of an educated woman, though he thought education was important.

For nearly 50 years, he served First Presbyterian Church of Hokendauqua right up to his death in 1917 at age 80. He had been ordained in New York on July 21, 1861, the night of the first Battle of Bull Run.

On Sunday afternoons of his first 28 years in Hokendauqua, he also preached in the Lock Ridge Presbyterian Church at Alburtis, the Ferndale Church at Fullerton and the Union congregation at Ironton.

Lafayette College gave him an honorary Doctor of Divinity at its 1887 commencement - two years before Mary was born.

Mary's mother, Sarah Jane (Cooper) Little, died in 1937 at age 91 at the family's Allentown homestead.

Mary Little has provided $3,000 to First Presbyterian Church of Hokendauqua in memory of all members of the Little family - which included two brothers and two sisters.

She also said the church was to get a large oil painting, a large photograph and a small oval frame picture - all of her father - and any articles concerning the church she may have had, such as newspaper clippings and written items.

From graduation in 1909, she attended every Cedar Crest reunion except two over the ensuing years.

She received the prize for being the oldest at so many annual reunions that college officials couldn't remember who won it before her. So they named the prize for her in 1982 and she continued to win it.

Her advice to young students was: "Stick to your studies and have fun besides."

She had been a regular contributor to Cedar Crest over the years. She left the college $2,000 in her will.

She also provided $1,000 each to the Lehigh County Association for the Blind and St. John's United Church of Christ in Allentown, the latter in memory of her brother, John T. Little, and her niece Margaret who worshipped there.

There were also some bequests to several individuals. The rest of the estate goes to four people - all up in years themselves - who helped Mary Little live out her years in her own home.

Her wealth apparently came from inheritances on her mother's side of the family.

That hand-written prayer among her papers said in part:

"Our Father, we think of all the pain and heartache, the tears, the sorrow, the greed and the cruelty unleased around the world.

"Help us to be instruments of Thine to alleviate the pain by returning good for evil . . . returning soft answers for sharp criticisms . . . being polite when we receive rudeness . . . being understanding when we are confronted with ignorance and stupidity.

"May we in gentleness and love checkthe hasty answer, choke back the unkind retort and thus short-circuit some of the bitterness and unkindness that has overflowed Thy world."